Hit a pocket of interestingness in Fallout 3 today. Specifically, I turned up at a camp of ’slavers’ (as in, people who enslave people) to liberate a couple of kids. Fair enough, right? So I talk to the guy at the door, and he says I can’t come in unless I pay him a fairly large amount of money or bring some slaves along with me. Neither of which seem reasonable. The fine in particular grates on me. I mill around for a while in front of him trying to work out what to do, feeling increasingly annoyed…

… and then I shot him in the head. My thought process in this matter revolved around a notion of respect. Specifically, I felt that this guy was disrespecting me by not acknowledging my superior might and equipment – surely he knew that he was ‘playing with fire’ etc. I find it fascinating that the game managed to put me in this kind of belligerent mind-set. I’d kill some guy partly to not pay a stupid fine, and partly because I’m miffed he doesn’t recognize that I’m Super Awesome Power Guy. Which I am, by the way.

As I looked at his inert body, I told myself stories about the ‘Law of the Wasteland’ and so on. That everyone should expect trouble if they’re disrespectful etc., just like Luke Skywalker at that bar in Star Wars. You have to be on your toes, etc. But the fact remains that the guy was ‘green’ when I aimed at him: the system identified him specifically as not a threat to me. So when I pulled the trigger, it was entirely in cold blood and not in self-defense. But c’mon… he was begging for it.

Am I somehow turning into Steven Seagal here?

… to be continued.

I’ve been playing the demo for UFC 2009 Undisputed a lot lately, a game which simulates the sport of mixed martial arts. I’ve mentioned the real version of the sport before on this blog, trying to comprehend my fascination with something so violent and primal, and ultimately forgiving myself for enjoying it.

Now, playing the video game version, it’s both ‘better’ and ‘worse’. For one thing, now I’m the one enacting the violence personally, striking the blows. On the other hand, now it’s entirely virtual and unreal, so I’m not really doing anything. Either way, I find it an incredibly engaging game, and I won’t deny that a big part of that is to do with kicking another dude in the head.

As a game I find that there are two really nice things about its design. First, it provides a perfect setting for brutal violence: the simulation of a sport which literally consists of that. In other words, there’s no need for a fancy (or more often tepid) narrative about how the two guys hate each other, or how they’re doing it for the women they love or anything, it’s just their job. For me, this makes the game more enjoyable as I’m often distracted by the lack of a convincing motive there often is for my actions in other violent games. Second, the game is complicated. It’s really a very serious attempt to simulate MMA fighting, and this involves a whole lot of controls, which possible helps to illustrate (procedurally, no less) that MMA fighting is more than brutality and actually does have an intellectual dimension.

Who’d-a thunk it?

Today I found myself, as I often do, watching the psychotic violence of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Variously sized mean beat the shit out of each other for extended periods of time. Fights that go the distance are exceedingly rare. Men are choked, submitted, punched, and kicked out.

I like it.

This is a weird thing for me, because I feel that I exist in a cultural context in which it is probably not ‘okay’ to be into this kind of thing. The general idea being that it’s brutish to watch and enjoy the brutes. But I can’t help it, it’s inherently fascinating and enthralling to watch people wanting to hurt each other, hurting each other, bleeding, etc.

At an obvious level, the appeal is ‘natural’: it’s evolution baby, men are totally into violence and dominance – why wouldn’t we want to watch this stuff? And yet, it’s a bit of a cultural no-no. A bit unrefined. A bit grotesque. A bit crass.

(Funnily enough, this all ties in to the sci-fi book I’m reading right now, Black Man by Richard Morgan. The novel revolves around a breed of men who have been genetically engineered to be entirely predatory and violent, the way we used to be pre-civilisation.)